Logging Off

Instinctively, you feel that there is nothing wrong with Daniella being upset about this. But what is there to say? You reread the entire argument and feel incapable of any clear, resonant, articulate thoughts. You don’t want to say anything that would antagonize the moderator, and even if you were willing to get into it…what would you say? Whenever Daniella texts you about what she’s reading, thinking, getting upset about — you just never know what to say. You are always on the wrong foot, always unsure what you should know about the world.

So you don’t post. Instead you slowly scroll up and down the thread, anxiously refreshing the page. Daniella posts again and this seems to be the last straw for taiga, who steps in and locks the thread:

taiga Moderator Both of you are talking past each other. And seed_historian, you’re taking this too seriously. Log off for a bit.

You pretend the advice is meant for you, and go to bed. It takes you a long time to fall asleep.

Daniella texts you the next day. Four texts all in a row, quick little pings. You avoid reading it until your commute home in the evening.

Were you offline last night?

You feel a surge of paranoic guilt and frustration. You’ve been working long hours! But you have a habit of posting daily, even when you stay late at work. Maybe your absence from the thread was conspicuous.

What would you do, the next few texts say, if everyone around you was obsessed with their small environmental wins — foraging and composting and bringing their New Yorker tote bags to the farmer’s market — and pretended like that was enough? That environmental awareness and justice stops there? That anything else is too uncomfortable to bring up?

You resolve to unburden yourself. I read your posts, you write back. I’m sorry. People were being really unfair to you.

Her response, when it arrives a minute later, is elliptical and hard to read. ‘Unfair’ is an interesting way to describe it. Unfair that we live here and others have been pushed to the margins, you mean? And it’s just this inexplicable accident that the natural world is more cramped, impoverished, degraded every year? That we’ve lost a way of living differently but there’s nothing we can do about it?

Is she upset at you? You read and reread her texts, trying to read into the final, emphatic question, the conspicuous lack of warmth. Alice would know what to do here — but when you try to text her, you realize you haven’t spoken in weeks.

At midnight, your phone buzzes. It’s Daniella.

I need a break from posting. I thought these were my people. Maybe they’re not.

You want to dissuade her, but but it feels like crossing a boundary. So you say nothing.

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